7/15/2009 @ 6:40PM

In Pictures: Best Downtowns For Empty-Nesters

For our list of best downtowns for empty-nesters, we considered the country’s 30 largest metro areas (geographic entities defined by the
U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics) and calculated the potential savings of moving downtown, based on the cost of property in the suburbs vs. the downtown area, using data from
Trulia.com, the Census Bureau and the Texas Transportation Institute.

No. 4: Seattle, Wash.

Suburbs considered: Bellevue, Medina, Clyde Hill

Downtown neighborhood: Belltown

It costs $500 per square foot to live in a prime Seattle suburb, and $490 to live downtown, which means cutting your living space in half from 3,000 square feet to 1,500 can net $765,000 in savings. Add in the money saved from top quintile earners avoiding a commute and you’ll find another $4,500 as the result of the move.